Death of Innocence
by lionesseyes13
Summary: Zahir didn't used to have a problem with hazing, but a lot can change over a summer, as he is about to find out, and a little bit of maturity can change everything...
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: If you believe that I am Tamora Pierce, could I also persuade you to give me your credit card and social security number as well as your full name and home address? It's all for non-criminal purposes, I swear…

Author's Note: This is written for the April-May challenge over at the wonderful Tamora Pierce Experiment forum which everyone should check out after reading (and hopefully reviewing) this fic. Since I am a college student, I don't happen to have my copy of the Woman Who Rides Like a Man with me to describe in detail all the Bazhir customs, so I had to rely on my memory and Tamora Pierce Wikipedia for my information, meaning that if you spot anything that I did wrong, feel free to point it out. Most of the things that I made up pertaining to the Bazhir are based on early Muslim customs, so I more appropriated than made up most things, to be honest.

Childishness

"Zahir, wake up!" An impatient hiss penetrated the sleepy fog that clouded Zahir's mind, and reluctantly, he pulled himself out of a very pleasant dream he had been having about Nasira Bint Mahmud, the daughter of the chief of a neighboring tribe.

Reflexively, Zahir sat up, thinking that he was at the Royal Palace, had overslept, and was frantically being awoken by one of his friends—probably Joren, because neither Garvey or Vinson really seemed to possess the intelligence necessary to tell time—so that he could throw on some clothes and run down to breakfast before Lord Wyldon could notice his absence. As his brain caught up to his racing heart, he realized that he was lying on a mat and blankets on the floor of a tent and wasn't sleeping on a high mattress in the Royal Palace.

Well, of course he wasn't, he thought, snorting at his own idiocy, as he collapsed back onto his sheets. He had been home for two days now and had been planning on taking advantage of the fact that he was allowed to sleep in over the summer, as he wasn't permitted to do as a page. Unfortunately, that had been beyond the comprehension of his little sister, Aisha Bint Alhaz.

"Go back to sleep, Aisha," he grunted, rolling over to block out the streams of sunlight now filtering into the tent. "It's too early for all this fussing."

"Don't be silly," whispered Aisha, shaking him. "It's too late to go back to sleep. The sun is rising, and the morning is wasting. I can't lie in bed knowing that every moment I spend there is a moment that I could have spent elsewhere, doing something more fun. Life is too short to waste time sleeping through mornings."

"You go off, do what you want, and let me do what I want," Zahir muttered, observing inwardly that his younger sister was one of those people who were by nature obnoxiously cheery in the morning. As far as Zahir was concerned, nobody had any business smiling before noon, and no one had any right to expect him to do any more than get up, get dressed, and eat before that time, especially during the summer. "If you can't sleep, at least have the courtesy to let me do the same."

"I want to go for a ride on Tayma," Aisha whispered back, speaking of her mare.

"I'm not stopping you." Zahir buried his head in his pillow and wished that his sister would go away already. Right now, he felt like he had one very frayed nerve left, and she was rubbing at it.

"I want to go for a ride with you," explained Aisha, curling up beside him on his blankets. "I miss you when you go off to training for so much of the year, and we used to go riding every morning together."

"That was when we were both young." Zahir shook his head. "That was when I didn't mind getting up at the break of day. Now that I'm older, I do mind."

"We're still young." Aisha rested her dark head on his shoulder. "We can still go riding together in the mornings."

"We're not young," hissed Zahir, pulling his shoulder away from her. "I'm thirteen now, and you're eleven. That makes us adults by the standards of this tribe. You're a woman now, whether or not you want to see it. You aren't even supposed to be on this side of tent, and especially not at this hour." Glaring into his sister's wide, surprised eyes, he added, "You should be wearing a veil, too. You look like a whore roaming around without your veil. Honestly, Aisha, don't you know what an unveiled woman makes a man want to do?"

"Probably the same thing you want to do to Nasira Bint Mahmud," commented Aisha slyly.

"What makes you think that I want to do anything with her?" demanded Zahir, trying desperately to keep from blushing.

"Don't lie to me," Aisha chided. "I could hear you moaning about her in your sleep before I woke you up."

"Smart women tend to get beaten by their husbands, Aisha," he glowered at her.

"You should be ashamed to say such things to your little sister." Aisha's eyes burned like coals as she glared at him.

"And you should be ashamed to be on this side of the tent at this hour, and you should be ashamed to be seen by anyone without your veil," he countered. "It seems we're both without shame."

"Then what's to stop us from going for a morning ride together?" she pressed, her eyes softening to amber as she pleaded with him.

"Fine." Sighing, Zahir concluded that he would never be able to convince Aisha to go away, which meant that he would never be able to go back to sleep, and that he might as well join her in her insanity if only to get her to stop pestering him. "I'll go for a ride, but you make sure that you wear your veil and that you ride sideways so that your dress doesn't rise up on you, or I'll never ride with you again."

"Oh, I knew that you'd agree in the end." Her face shining, Aisha wrapped her arms around him, and then released him before he could extricate himself from his clutches. Then, beaming, she shoved herself to her feet, and, rubbing her hands together excitedly, added, "I'll pack us some juice and pasties, too. We'll have ourselves a picnic by the oasis just like when we were little."

Smiling at the thought of cold liquid pouring down his throat after a hard ride through the desert sand to the oasis, Zahir shooed her away, so that he could change.

Once he had changed and Aisha had donned her veil and packed the refreshments she had promised, they left their family's tent . A few minutes later, the two of them were racing on horseback away from the tent village that their tribe had set up for a few weeks before moving on to the next oasis. As soon as they were away from the tents, Aisha burst out laughing, and Zahir couldn't help but joining her.

The wind smacking against his face always made him feel alive and free. No matter how old he got, he would always think that there was something magical about riding a horse. Horses were children of the wind, and their greatest gift to humans wasn't speed—it was the feeling that a person had when he was riding a horse. When someone was riding on a horse, they felt like all their troubles were flying away behind them, and that any obstacles that they might face ahead were insignificant. If you were riding a horse, running against the wind no longer seemed like a bad, draining thing, but rather a glorious, invigorating rite. Anyone who could never connect with a horse as deeply as he had connected to his Sufia or as Aisha had connected to her Tayma hadn't truly lived and had Zahir's deepest sympathies.

Suddenly, as he charged across the desert, feeling like he had become one with his mount, he was indescribably grateful that his little sister had awakened him to go for a ride with her. She had been right to wake him up. After all, going for a ride like this was exhilarating at any time of day, but it was best around dawn when the sun hadn't become blazing yet and the sand wasn't scorching yet. The wind never felt crisper than it did around dawn when the coolness of the night still clung to everything.

"I'd forgotten how amazing this was!" he shouted to Aisha, grinning wildly at her, and not caring that the red sand that his horse's hooves kicked up would stick to his teeth. If you were a Bazhir, you had to get used to sand attaching itself to every part of your body, after all.

"That's why I had to remind you," she screamed back, as they neared the oasis, and both of them reluctantly slowed their horses. "Remember, my name means 'life.'"

"How could I forget when you are so full of it?" chuckled Zahir, as they both halted their horses by the oasis and dismounted.

"I think that we should keep the life strong within us by eating that breakfast I packed for us, but first we should let our horses drink from the oasis to keep the life in them strong," said Aisha, leading her horse over to the water, as Zahir did the same.

"I was going to say that," Zahir told her, watching as the two horses gulped down the water.

"Doesn't matter." Aisha shook her head, dismissing this, while the horses' gulps turned into slower, more dignified laps. "I said it first."

"I guess us older siblings should let the last borns be first sometimes, so they aren't consumed entirely by jealousy," stated Zahir with mock-judiciousness.

"You aren't the first born," Aisha retorted as the horses turned away from the water, and she bent down to wash her hands in the oasis before taking out their food and juice. "Laila is."

"Laila is a female," Zahir scoffed, watching hungrily as his sister laid out their breakfast. "Women don't inherit unless their father has no sons, and, even then, it's their husbands who end up inheriting. Everyone wants sons, and it is the firstborn son that is most important, for he is the one who inherits a vast majority of his father's estate, if not all of it."

"I guess that, as a woman, Nasira Bint Mahmud is worthless to you," Aisha remarked, biting into a fruit pasty.

"Nasira will be good at providing a man with sons one day, and at cooking and cleaning for her husband as she cooks and cleans for her father." Zahir tried to keep his face and tone blank as he shrugged. Feeling that his cheeks were burning, he sipped at his cup of juice, hoping that its coolness would take the heat from his face, and praying that if it didn't, Aisha would assume that the crimsonness was from riding, not from embarrassment. "Proper women are useful, Aisha. It is only those who refuse to be proper like you that are worthless."

"I'm not worthless." As she finished her first pasty, Aisha reached for another. "Father has already received better offers for my hand than he did for Laila—Mother told me. A girl is only as valuable to her father as the husband she gets."

"Father only got better offers for you because you are prettier than Laila," Zahir explained between bites of pasty.

"So beauty is more important in a woman than propriety," reasoned Aisha. "Laila has propriety, and I have beauty."

"Beauty tempts a man, but propriety keeps him," Zahir said through gritted teeth. "Beauty is fleeting, but virtue lasts forever. Women who are temptresses are ultimately regarded with contempt by everyone."

"Temptresses may incite contempt, but at least they don't go practically unnoticed like Mother and Laila do." Aisha shrugged.

"Proper women are supposed to blend into the background." Zahir rolled his eyes. "Do you ever listen w to Mother when she tells you what you are supposed to do in order to be a proper woman?"

"I listen, but I don't obey." Throwing back her head, Aisha laughed in a manner that Zahir knew would make the blood roar in the bodies of at least a dozen suitors.

"Proper women are supposed to obedient," Zahir reminded her.

"Proper women are supposed to have no fun." Aisha's face clouded for half a moment, and then she smiled again. "I intend to have fun every day of my life. There's no point in being alive if you don't enjoy life at all. No matter what happens, I intend to stay forever young, forever beautiful, and forever laughing."

"You're so childish." Zahir shot her a withering look.

"You weren't complaining about that when we were riding together," pointed out Aisha, folding her arms across her chest.

"That was a stolen moment of fun," Zahir countered. "It wasn't meant to last forever. Adults are allowed to have moments of pleasure, but then they are expected to go back to doing their duty without complaint."

"We aren't adults, Zahir," Aisha protested.

"We're more adults than we are children, Aisha, and it's time you accepted that." Zahir shook his head. "Refusing to believe that you are getting older won't make you stop aging. Not accepting the duties that become yours as you grow older just makes you irresponsible."

"Better irresponsible than a misery guts." Aisha waved this aside. "There will be time enough for growing up later."

Before Zahir could reply, the sound of hooves thundering across the desert reached their ears. Looking up, they both saw a cloud of sand approaching them. As the sand cloud raced toward them, a horse and then a man became visible in it.

"You're wanted back home, Zahir," the man, Javier ibn Kaliq, shouted, as he neared them. "Your father went to collect the tax that your uncle refused to pay for trading outside the tribe, and your uncle knifed him."

Stunned, Zahir could do nothing more than gape at Javier. He knew that tension had always bubbled between his father and his father's younger brother, Kamal, but he had never imagined that Kamal would attack his father. Attacking a chief wasn't just a violation of tribal laws, it was breaking the very customs set down by the gods.

"Hurry back," Javier panted, as he dismounted and led his horse over to the oasis. "Your father wants to see you at once."

Unfreezing himself, Zahir burst into action now that Javier's words had been absorbed into his brain enough for him to realize that his father—the chief of their tribe—was injured, and Zahir had been summoned to his side. In one smooth motion, he leapt onto his horse and took off toward his family's tent, thinking that the pounding of his horse's hooves sounded terribly like the blood beating through his veins. As he rushed toward his father's side, Zahir could only think bitterly that Aisha, whose horse was charging along beside him, knew nothing, and that there was no time to be young if you were the son of a chief.


	2. Chapter 2

End of an Era

Zahir didn't know how long it took him to ride back to camp with Aisha's horse thundering behind him. All he knew was that he had to get back as quickly as possible, and that however long it took him to get back would be too long. As he rode, he couldn't stop his overly active imagination from inventing a million different injuries that his father could have sustained when Uncle Kamal had attacked him.

On one level, Zahir understood that he could simply have turned around on his horse and asked Javier, whose horse was pounding along only a few feet behind Aisha's now, what sort of injuries his father had sustained exactly. Yet, every time the question rose to his mouth, his lips and tongue obstinately refused to form the words. Speaking, he told himself, would take time that he didn't have. Besides, if he asked Javier for information, he might learn that his father's injures were even more terrible than he had envisioned, and Zahir wasn't confident that he could handle such a revelation.

Nonsense, he snapped at himself as the three of them stampeded into camp, and directed their horses toward Zahir's family's tent. He was the son of a chief, and by the laws of inheritance in his tribe, he would be the chief when his father died—which wouldn't be today. He couldn't be weak, because it was his duty to be strong. He could handle everything because he was expected to handle everything. If he couldn't, the gods would not have put him in line to be chief.

He had managed to steel himself somewhat with these thoughts, as he dismounted and rushed into his family's tent with Aisha on his heels, and Javier remaining outside the tent to act as a guard against some harm that, as far as Zahir was concerned had already come and done its work. However, any strength that he had built inside himself crumbled as soon as he burst into the tent and his eyes fell on the motionless, ashen-faced man whose face and stomach were marred by knife cuts lying on a mat in the men's half of the tent.

As soon as he laid eyes on the frail figure on the bed, Zahir felt as if the ground beneath his feet had shifted so much that he was in danger of being swallowed up in the dark abyss that probably existed underground. Of course, being gobbled up by the abyss would probably have been preferable to being in this tent where the chanting of the shaman as he released incense to appease and appeal to the gods was dizzying and the sight of the blood-soaked rags beside the sick mat didn't make Zahir's stomach curl in on itself.

You aren't looking at your father, he told himself, reminding himself to breathe before he fainted. You accidentally walked into the wrong tent. Your father cannot be lying there with blood soaked bandages on his stomach and face. That isn't your mother sitting beside him, holding his hand and sobbing her eyes out onto his sheet. Your father can't be hurt by any attack, no matter how horrible. He is invulnerable, and your mother can't cry, since she never weeps. She has the grace to hold herself while everyone around her crawls, and Father would never give her any reason to cry.

That's what Zahir told himself, as he stared numbly at the man on the mat and the woman wailing beside him. He almost made himself believe it, too, because he was good at telling himself lies, and because he recognized that to think otherwise would be to slam the door shut on his own childhood forever. No matter what he had said to Aisha earlier, he wasn't ready to do that anymore than she was, and his anger at her had originated from the fact that he, too, didn't want to grow old and die. He wanted to stay young and strong forever, and he wanted to spend eternity on the desert running against the wind.

Zahir's conviction that he had walked into the wrong tent by mistake was shattered when the woman looked up at him and Aisha, and gasped, "Zahir! Aisha! Oh, thank the Goddess that you're here at last! Laila has gone out to fetch some more bandages from the neighbors, so she'll be back soon. Her husband is just rounding up the other council members in case---in case they are needed here."

As the realization that it was indeed his father lying as though dead on the cot and his mother sobbing as though her husband were already dead, Zahir felt his bones turn to milk. He found that he couldn't move, and he thought that Aisha would be similarly impacted. However, it appeared that he was wrong in this as in so much else, for she screamed, "Father!"

Then, she lurched forward, yanking off her veil as she did so, knelt beside their father, kissed one of the few spots on his cheek not swathed in a bandage, and then rested her forehead against his. Slowly, as though it required an incomprehensible amount of effort, their father opened his eyes, gazed up at Aisha, and then lifted a trembling hair to stroke her long, dark hair.

"Aisha," he rasped, and even the shaman stopped his chanting temporarily to allow the chief to be heard clearly. As Zahir watched, their father ran his fingers through Aisha's hair, looking at it was though it were more valuable and more gorgeous than the finest gemstones. "So beautiful. So lively."

"I'd give my life to you in a heartbeat if I could, Father." Zahir could see the tears streaming down Aisha's cheeks onto their father's forehead, and he could see how she pulled back when they started to fall so that the salt in them wouldn't go into his cuts.

As he watched Aisha fall back into their mother's arms, so that their tears mingled together in a dreadful, heart-crushing dirge, Zahir knew that it could never be as easy as exchanging one life or one soul for another. Death involved the Black God, and when the Black God, or any other deity, was involved, things were always complicated. The Black God didn't care what mortals wanted; the god of death snatched up anyone that he thought would make a good addition to his realm. The Black God always called people to his kingdom when it suited him and not a moment before, and Zahir could only pray that the Black God hadn't decided that he needed a Bazhir chief.

"I'd not put out your candle so soon, daughter." Father shook his head, and more blood flowed from his wounds into the rags tied to his face. Then, he gazed blearily around the tent until his eyes focused on Zahir, and some tension coiled inside him that Zahir hadn't noticed until it left, ebbed from him. "Come."

Obediently, Zahir stumbled forward, feeling as though he had drank several kegs of ale, and his mother and sister scooted aside, so that he could kneel beside his father. "Yes, Father?" he asked, kneeling down and bending his head so that he could hear his father's whisp of a voice.

"Council should be here soon." Hearing how hard it was for his father even to whisper these words, Zahir couldn't help but wish that his father wouldn't speak, especially because the words his father were saying were words that Zahir didn't want to hear. They sounded like the man was making provisions for when he died….

"Father, don't speak," he said, trying to convince both of them that the man wasn't dying. "Save your energy."

"Must speak now," his father answered, breathing much too shallowly for Zahir's comfort. "Don't have much time left to."

"You have plenty of time left to." Zahir shook his head wildly, as the tent flap opened and closed behind them when Laila entered with the replacement bandages.

"Don't lie to me or yourself." Listening to him, Zahir's vision blurred. The man's tone should have been stern and filled with unshakable authority. It should have been a voice that didn't even entertain the notion that it would be disobeyed. That was the voice that Zahir had gown up hearing commands issued from his father in. It shouldn't have been a tone that sounded like the faint whisper of wind in the desert. It should have derived its authority from life and not from death. "Accept that I'm dying."

"You're not dying," Zahir protested, clutching his father's hand, as if that alone would be enough to bind the man to this plane of existence.

"Hush." His father's answering squeeze was much too weak, and his eyes were filled with much too heavy a knowledge for Zahir to even look at them, but, at the same time, they were filled with such a terrible sorrow that Zahir couldn't bring himself to glance away, either. "I leave you in charge of my people." Weakly, he gestured at his wife and daughters. "Look after my family, Zahir. Look after my tribe."

"I will, Father," he promised automatically, willing to do or say anything if it might ease the other's pain. He didn't even pause to think how he would manage to lead the tribe if he was in Corus training as a page, and he didn't even ask himself how he could be expected to care for others when in so many ways he still needed someone to care for him.

Before anyone in the tent could say anything else, the tent flap rustled open again, and, looking over his shoulder, Zahir saw Laila's husband, Hassan ibn Saifan, and the three other council members come into the tent. Instantly, his sisters and mother fell back so that the council members could kneel beside their chief's mat.

"I wish to hand over the authority that I wield to my son." From what felt like a league off, Zahir heard his father say the ritual words. The words that began the rite that would make him chief. The words that meant that his father was dying and leaving him in charge of his people. The words that meant he would need to have a ceremony to be formally recognized by the Voice soon. The words that meant that soon he would be presiding over his father's funeral. The words that sounded the death of his innocence as much as they sounded the death of his father.

As soon as the words left his father's mouth, the shaman, who had stopped chanting as he sprayed incense everywhere long enough to kneel next to the chief and Zahir, pulled Zahir's hand out of his father's clasp. Then, before Zahir could even think to protest, the shaman withdrew a knife from his cloak and poked it into Zahir's palm. For an instant, Zahir only felt a pleasant coolness as the metal penetrated his skin. As the knife removed itself from his body, waves of pain began to ripple through him, and he started to taste blood in his mouth.

While the councilmen looked on, the shaman made a similar slice in Zahir's father's palm. Watching the knife plunge in and out of his father's skin, Zahir expected the man to cry out, but he didn't, because, apparently, one small knife cut paled in comparison to what he had experienced today, or perhaps because he no longer had the energy left to scream.

Once his father's palm was streaked with blood as Zahir's was, the shaman raised both their palms towards the heavens, shouting, "Gods and men can see that the old is passing away despite our prayers and poultices. Gods and men can see that it is time for the new to replace the old. Men can see that these two men are separate, but by the power of the gods, they shall become one. By the power of the gods, the power of the old will enter the new, the wisdom of the old will infuse the new, the righteousness of the old will fill the new, the justice of the old will inspire the new, and the mercy of the old will stay the hand of the new."

With that, the shaman smashed their bleeding palms together and ground their hands into each other, so that their blood didn't just mingle with one another, but became fused. As his blood merged with that of his father, Zahir's body was overcome by the oddest sensation. He didn't know what caused it. He didn't know if the blood loss had made him dizzy and prone to delusions. He didn't know if the shaman's incense had intoxicated him. He didn't know if the shaman's appeals to the gods had been more effective this time than they had been when he had begged the gods to heal Zahir's father.

All he knew was that he, who had always defined prayer as speaking to a god and hallucination as when a god talked back, had almost been bawled over by a sudden surge of energy flowing into him. It was a pure, raw, vast power. It was uncontrollable, and yet somehow, he was supposed to control a fraction of it. It was incomprehensible, and yet somehow, he was expected to understand it on some level.

In that moment, as the energy washed over him, he felt transcendent and almost omnipotent. He was simultaneously more attuned to his body than he had ever been before—conscious of every heartbeat and every breath that filled his lungs—and farther removed from it than he had ever been before. It was as though he could sense beyond three, or even four, dimensions, and it felt as if he could grasp onto the very fabric of space and time, and twist it any way that suited him.

For one blinding instant, she could feel connected to the gods as he had never done before. In that moment, he realized fully that there was a sort of cosmic consciousness that knotted all things everywhere to each other. More than that, he felt like he could draw on that power and use it to do anything he desired…

For that timeless moment, he felt as though he were a god. He could see the sun and the earth being born. He could see civilizations rise and fall. He could see time flowing inexorably onward like a roaring river, but he was able to keep track of every detail of it.

He could see the generations of his people that had culminated in the present, and he could see the faces of his descendents. He could see the leaders of his tribe that had come before him and that would rule after him. He could feel the grief of every person that had ever set foot on the sand of the desert that he called his home. He could feel the weight of the responsibilities that had crushed their souls. He could feel the burdens they had struggled to carry. He could feel the joys that had made them feel like they could fly. He could feel their exhilaration when they went for morning rides. He could feel their rage when they fought for their lives. He could feel their anger when they were wronged. He could feel their love when they defended their families. He could hear the cries that they stifled into their pillows at night. He could see the dreams that they hadn't dared to have die. He could see their determination as they maintained their traditions in opposition to the Tortallans who had conquered them. He could feel their fierce pride in their identity.

He could feel it all, and he was a part of all of it and of none of it. He could feel it all, and the knowledge that every being who had ever existed and would ever exist was as complex as he was him was mind-numbing, and the idea that he was expected to rule over people was, if anything, even more stupefying.

His brain and heart were unable to deal with the stimulation, because, even for a moment, it didn't due to have the knowledge and emotional range of a god without the wisdom and strength of one, and he felt everything go black as he collapsed onto what must have been the floor of the tent.


	3. Chapter 3

Lost in the Dark

The darkness swallowed Zahir whole. It consumed all of his desires and his fears, and he didn't object, because blackness meant oblivion, and oblivion was welcome. Oblivion meant that he could refuse to face the agony that came from his brief, but utterly overwhelming godlike perspective on the universe itself. Oblivion meant that he would not have to deal with the idea that his father was dying and was leaving him responsible not only for their family, but for their tribe.

However, the darkness was a cruel master, because as he became aware of the blackness that he was swimming in, his mind began to emerge from it, as his dreamless slumber was intruded upon by a burgeoning luminescence. At first, it started in one corner of his brain, and he fought to squash it. However, the light was stronger than his willpower, and slowly and inexorably, the light expanded like dye in water, ultimately dominating his head.

His eyelids must have flickered or he must have offered some other sign of dawning awareness, for a voice asked tentatively, "Zahir?"

Hmm…something about that voice was awfully familiar, though it was an occurrence as rare as encountering an expanse of frozen water in the desert he called home to hear that particular tone. After all, hesitancy fit precocious Aisha about as well as flexible fit Lord Wyldon. Obviously, Aisha was concerned for him, and with good cause—he felt as though he had a bruise the size of a major geological formation on his head and his body as a whole felt like it had been dragged over a cactus backwards.

Still, it wouldn't do to make Aisha worry. After all, he was the one who as supposed to look after her and protect her, not the other way around. As this thought lanced through his newly awakened brain, he opened his eyes, an endeavor that was complicated by the fact that he felt as if they had been replaced with stone, and took a groggy reconnaissance of his surroundings.

Aisha, her face moist with mingled sweat and tears, was hovering over the sleeping mat he had been laid out upon. Behind her, their faces thrown into shadows by the flickering candles beside them, were his mother and Laila, who were busy scrubbing Zahir's father and dressing him in white for his cremation ceremony, in which his ashes would be thrown out over the desert. Then, his body like his soul would be returned to the sky, and his skin would be returned to the sand.

Next to the women, the shaman was chanting, but, thankfully, no longer polluting the tent with his noxious healing fumes.

"Father's dead?" Zahir rasped out, as Aisha bent over and lit the candle beside his mat. He told himself that the answer was no, and that the women were just cleaning the sweat and blood from his father, and that his father had been overreacting when he asked the shaman to perform the blood rite earlier. The vision that the gods had granted him during the ceremony only proved how unfit he was to rule his tribe. Surely, the gods could not make such an ill-advised decision as leaving him in charge of his people when he hadn't even completed his page training yet.

"The strain of the ceremony was too much for him," Aisha whispered, nodding. "His heart stopped bleeding a second after you fainted and hit your head on the ground."

"I killed him, then," he muttered, turning his head fitfully on his mat so that she couldn't see the tears that he wouldn't allow to fall stinging his own eyes. The ceremony had been bad enough for Zahir, who was young and strong, but it must have been even worse for his father, who was older and weaker from his injury, especially considering that the power had been flowing from Zahir's father into him. In short, his father had died giving him the wisdom he needed to lead, even though Zahir knew that he was nowhere near ready to do that.

"No, no, you didn't." Aisha shook her head fervently, looking at him as though wondering how hard he had slammed his head against the floor of the tent earlier. "Kamal attacked him, remember? He wouldn't have lived even if he hadn't done the ceremony with you."

Before Zahir could argue the point, she shoved a cup of steaming herbal tea toward his face, ordering, "Drink, brother."

"No." He shook his head again. "I'm hot enough without drinking that."

"It's medicine," Aisha informed him, bringing the mug to his lips despite his protest. "It will clear your head."

"It's your head that needs clearing, not mine," grunted Zahir derisively. A half second later, he realized that this was a tactical error, because Aisha took advantage of his open mouth to pour the steaming liquid down his throat.

"We should've named you 'cunning,' instead," Zahir coughed. Despite his words, though, he found that the tea had an invigorating effect on him, and that now he only felt as though he had been dragged over a cactus forward instead of backward. Grudgingly, he added, "Thank you, Aisha."

"I live to serve," replied Aisha dryly.

Zahir longed to retort that Aisha seemed to devote a remarkably small portion of her life to serving others if this was indeed the case, but he couldn't do that anymore. Now he was her chief in all but the final official sense, and no more just her older brother. Childish spats with her would have to a thing of the past.

As he bid a painful farewell to another aspect of his dead childhood, Zahir's attention was caught when the tent flaps brushed open and his brother-in-law, Hassan, stride into the tent.

"Where have you been?" Zahir asked Hassan as he entered, knowing that, since Hassan was on the council, he would doubtlessly have been attending to important duties after Zahir's father died.

"I've been making the rounds with the other council members, making sure that everyone knows that your father has moved onto the Black God's realm and that you will be made our chief once the Voice arrives to perform the ceremony," answered Hassan solemnly, kneeling on the floor beside his wife, no doubt to say prayers for the soul of his father-in-law. "We've also sent out a messenger to the Voice telling him that your father has passed on and that he is need to install you as chief officially."

Trying to conceal his trembling at the prospect of facing another rite as intense as the one he had recently endured with his father, Zahir observed tightly, "Since King Jonathan is supposed to be connected to all of us, he should be able to feel that one of the chiefs has died without us needing to tell him."

As he spoke, he realized with a faint twinge of embarrassment that he had referred to the Voice as King Jonathan. That was a habit that he must have picked up at the Royal Palace living among non-Bazhir. Non-Bazhir like Lord Wyldon or Joren would have thought him impertinent if he had referred to the King as something different from His Majesty, King Jonathan, or the King. Non-Bazhir didn't understand that the Voice was a higher, more sacred title than king in many ways. They couldn't hope to comprehend that while kings generally were viewed among the Tortallans as leaders appointed by the gods who were really only a step away from the divine, the Voice was almost like a distant god among the Bazhir. Non-Bazhir wouldn't understand that, because they wouldn't want to comprehend that. Non-Bazhir didn't want to see Bazhir as a different cultural group; they wished to perceive the Bazhir as exactly like other Tortallans except with darker skins and tribes instead of fiefs. Living among non-Bazhir, Zahir had learned long ago to stifle those things that made him too different for the Tortallans he typically associated with to accept.

Unfortunately, it seemed that the habits he formed at the Royal Palace made him different from true Bazhir people. It appeared that he was trapped between a Tortallan world and a Bazhir one, and it was as if he was attempting to fill two roles of people and succeeding in neither. Worse still, if he wasn't truly a Bazhir, how could he be a chief of one of their tribes?

Then again, he reminded himself, King Jonathan was the Voice, and he wasn't of Bazhir ancestry at all. Oddly enough, while he had intended that idea to be comforting, it was actually disconcerting. It made him wonder if after generations of resisting the Tortallans, the Bazhir would end up being conquered by them not by arms but by assimilation. He didn't want to think about his proud people being overcome in such an ignominious fashion. It would be better to be wiped out in a blaze of glory than to just become dark-skinned Tortallans.

He needed a distraction before such dark thoughts swallowed him whole, and, perhaps Mithros took some small measure of pity upon him finally, because at that minute, there was the sound of running outside the tent. Then, an instant later, the tent flap swung open, and a guard burst in shouting, "Kamal has escaped from the tent he was tied up in."

"Gather up any grown men that can be spared. We'll divide into parties and search for him. He can't have gotten far," Zahir snapped at Hassan, pushing himself to his feet and rushing out of the tent to get his mount, Sufia. Kamal would not escape him. Kamal would pay in blood for taking the life of Zahir's father. Zahir would be sure to avenge his father and enforce the laws of his people, and if that meant killing his uncle, that didn't worry him. Murderers deserved no sympathy in his opinion, especially if they were guilty of killing their own brothers. Besides, Zahir would not have been faced with the impossible task of leading a tribe at his young age if it wasn't for Kamal.


	4. Chapter 4

Call to Vengeance

Within moments, the area outside Zahir's tent was swallowed up in chaos, as shouting men and older boys readied their steeds and divided into search parties. In the madness, Zahir caught sight of Hassan and Javier, and ordered, "You two, accompany me."

Nodding, they nudged their horses so that they were beside him. Once Hassan and Javier were next to him, he took a deep breath, and then issued what amounted to the first direct command to his tribesmen, "Break into groups of three or four." Picking out some of the members of the council, he went on, "Aasim, take a group and head south. Faisal, lead your group southwest. Jamal, you and your group are responsible for the southeast, and, Kahlid, the , you and your group will handle the northeast, and Yasir can handle the northwest. I myself will search the north. If you find Kamal, send a man to me with the message immediately after you have subdued him. Do not give up the search for him until I've sent a man to tell you to stop."

As he finished with his instructions, many of the men nodded in acknowledgement, while the groups rode off in the directions he had outlined. Watching men older than himself comply with his commands without any argument caused an uneasy knot to form in Zahir's stomach. However, his discomfiture turned to anger when he saw Kamal's son, who was two years younger than him and who had been shunned by the tribesmen as they broke into groups, follow after Omar's men.

"Come with me, Nadir. I want to keep an eye on you to ensure that you don't help your father escape," Zahir snapped, and his cousin, wearing an expression oddly reminiscent of a dog about to be whipped, rode up to Zahir's search party.

"I've got a map," said Javier, pulling a piece of parchment out as they rode away from the tents, their eyes on the lookout for movement or boulders and cacti that Kamal could hide behind.

"We don't need a map," Zahir ruled crisply. "We know here all the oasises in this region are located, and we know where all the boulders a person could hide behind or rest in the shade of are located."

"I see--I just thought you might find it helpful after being away for so much of the year," answered Javier, folding up the map and tucking it into his clothes again. Although the words were tactful enough, Zahir felt himself stiffen.

"I'm no less of a Bazhir now than I was before I left for page training." He drew himself up haughtily, striving to convince himself of this as much as he was Javier. "This desert is a part of me. I know it as well as I know the palm of my hand."

"I don't know about you, but I don't spend all that much time examining the palm of my hand," observed Hassan.

"That's the point." Zahir glowered at a prickly cactus that was too small for anything larger than a scorpion to conceal itself behind. "It's a part of you, so you don't have to study it, because you are already familiar with it. Now, unless anyone has anything useful to add, I suggest we all be quiet. After all, we don't want to alert Kamal to our presence."

After that, they continued to travel through the desert, searching behind cacti and boulders, until, possibly an hour later, they found Kamal cowering behind a large boulder. The instant it became clear that they had spotted him, Kamal abandoned his attempt at motionlessness, and, instead,launched himself at them with a wild cry, holding a sharp rock in his hand like a knife. As though he were unwilling to fight his father, Nadir stepped back, but Hassan, Javier, and Zahir attacked their assailant in a flurry of knives.

Less than a minute later, a howling Kamal dropped the blood stained rock onto the sand, cuts crossing his palms, his arms, and his legs. "I surrender," he screamed, holding up his gory hands to show how empty they were, and falling onto the desert ground. "Don't hurt a weaponless man anymore. It's not honorable."

"You would know all about the dishonor of that, since you knifed your weaponless brother," retorted Zahir, kicking the kneeling man in the face with all the force he could muster, and smiling when he saw the man's lips split open and two of his front teeth fall out.

"How can you watch this done to your father, and not do anything?" Kamal glared at Nadir. "A man who turns his back on his own family like this isn't worth a raisin."

"Father, if you hadn't betrayed your own family, we wouldn't be here right now." Nadir's voice was steady, but his face was pale, and his eyes were tortured.

"That's right," agreed Zahir with cheerful brutality. He punched Kamal in each eye, and leered as he saw his uncle's hands smear blood over each eyelid as he reflexively reached up to soothe his flesh. "You brought this upon yourself when you killed my father, and how could you possibly think that you could get away with such a crime?"

He was hoping that his uncle would say that he hadn't been thinking--that he had lashed out in rage and that he hadn't even really been trying to murder Zahir's father--but, instead, Kamal established through battered lips, "You have to ask that? You're more of a fool than I thought. I thought I had enough friends in the tribe that would side with me against you. I thought that nobody would want a boy as young as you for chief. I was wrong, though, it seems like my friends have no more backbone than my son, and it appears that my fellow tribesmen have no more brains than you."

"It seems that you are the one with no brains, because you miscalculated." Zahir spat on Kamal to convey his contempt in the most eloquent manner he could think of at the moment."Now, the person passing judgment on you is the son of the man you killed. I trust you aren't planning on pleading for mercy."

"I'm not." Kamal spat on the ground, releasing more blood than saliva. "I see that you have inherited enough of the family ruthlessness to know that it would do me no good."

"Wonderful." Zahir gave a feral grin, as he withdrew his sword from his sheath and rested it against Kamal's neck. "Then, I gather that it won't be too alarming to hear that your sentence is death." As Nadir gave a stifled cry and buried his face along the rugged side of the boulder, Zahir asked, "Any last words?"

"No," Kamal snarled, "I don't need to justify myself to a boy who is barely old enough to shave. The Black God alone is worthy of judging me."

"Arrogant to the last," sneered Zahir. Then, he plunged his sword into Kamal's neck. It cleaved through the skin easily, and skidded through the muscle. Slowly, it ground through the bone, and then it sliced through muscle and skin again. Once his uncle's head had been severed from its body, Zahir yanked his sword out, and stared, feeling a savage sort of delight, as the man's head fell to the ground in a gory mess, the eyes still blinking for a second.

"I'll go tell the other groups that it's time to return home," announced Javier over the sound of Nadir's hitching sobs after a moment that seemed to contain an eternity.

"I'll go help him," added Hassan, clapping Nadir on the back before mounting his horse in one smooth motion.

"You'd better do that." Zahir nodded, and he watched as the two men raced away, their horses' hooves raising sand into the air.

Now that the adrenaline that had surged through him when he had killed his uncle was wearing off, he had time to feel appalled with himself for the sadistic nature in which he had executed Kamal. He remembered the horrid voice in his brain that had whispered to him that it would feel so good to abuse and kill his own uncle in retribution for the man's crimes. He recalled the fraction of his heart that had screamed at him how simple it would be to employ his wrath to exact reparation from Kamal. He remembered the part of his conscience that had hissed at him that killing his uncle in cold blood would even be justice after a fashion, since his uncle had callously murdered his father.

Thinking of all this made him shudder despite the sweltering desert heat. For the first time, he understood how powerful and omnipresent evil was. For the first time, he comprehended that it was never any further away than an eye blink or a heartbeat. For the first time, it occurred to him how evil waited to ensnare the unwary, wearing a thousand disguises. For the first time, he realized that evil tempted people by appearing good and rational, and by seeming to possess all the virtues it lacked.

It wasn't so much that he had been wrong to kill his uncle, Zahir reflected. After all, the tribe couldn't allow a murderer to live, and the man who killed a chief certainly couldn't escape the death penalty. However, Zahir should not have taken pleasure in killing Kamal. He should never have allowed his personal quest for vengeance taint the noble, eternal battle for justice. He shouldn't have told himself that the ends justified the means without sufficient thought that it really did.

I'll do better in the future, he promised himself. I owe it to my people and myself.

As he broke free of his musings, the heart-wrenching quality of Nadir's uncontrollable sobs hit him, and, tentatively, he approached his cousin. "I'm sorry that I snapped at you earlier and that I just executed your father," he muttered, resting a hand on Nadir's shoulder, feeling relieved when the other young man didn't pull away, and wishing that he was more used to offering apologies and consolations.

"You don't need to apologize to me for doing your duty as tribe leader," Nadir choked out, the tears finally slowing down.

"You don't think that the manner in which I killed your father was unfair, then?" demanded Zahir, eyeing his companion closely as Nadir spun around to face him at last.

"No," Nadir replied with a crazy faith that Zahir envied. "Nothing you do can be unjust, because you make the law among our tribe now. It's like how nothing a god or goddess does can be wrong, since it is the gods and goddesses who determine right and wrong."

"You're so good," Zahir whispered, reaching out and clasping his cousin's hand convulsively. It should have made him feel better to have his guilt wiped away so quickly, but instead it tore at him. He didn't deserve mercy when he had granted none to his uncle, after all.

"No," Nadir countered in a hoarse tone, waving a hand at his father's bloody corpse. "I just want to end the bloodshed between members of our family now. I just want the dead past to bury its own dead. Hating you for killing my father isn't going to restore him to life, and it's not going to seal the breach that has developed between members of our family either. Our family needs more love and understanding, not anger and resentment, I think."

"I think you're right, and I think that when I return to the Royal Palace for page training, I will leave you in charge of the tribe."

"Me?" Nadir gaped at him. "But I am even younger than you and the son of the man who killed your father. Whatever will people say?"

"If they have any more sense than a boulder, they will say that the sons are wiser than the fathers and that the rift between the two branches of our family has been sealed at last." Zahir waved his hand dismissively. "If they say anything else, they have less sense than a boulder, and, as such, aren't worth listening to."


	5. Chapter 5

Beginnings and Endings

Kneeling before King Jonathan—no, Zahir sternly corrected himself mentally, the Voice, not King Jonathan, when he was partaking in Bazhir rites—Zahir tried to forget the circle of tribesmen and their veiled wives who had their eyes rooted on him and the Voice. Instead, he focused on the golden sand beneath his knees, hoping that he would not humiliate himself, his family, or his tribe by messing up this final initiation ceremony…

"Zahir ibn Alhaz." Through his nerves, Zahir heard the Voice acknowledge him, his tone as commanding and compelling as ever. Now that he had been acknowledged, Zahir was supposed to look up. Feeling like he would greatly have preferred to continue to scrutinize the sand until time ended, he raised his face and gazed up into the Voice's eyes.

The instant he made eye contact with the older man, Zahir knew that he had made a mistake. Those piercing eyes the same color as a cloudless summer sky told him quite plainly that he was not cut out to rule. The authority and charisma that sparked in the Voice's eyes announced to him more effectively that Zahir would never be half as good a leader as this man was. What was Zahir even doing here? How could he presume to lead just because his father and grandfather before him had been chief?

Suddenly, Zahir wanted to flee from the ceremony, screaming that he was not fit to rule and that the Voice had to pick a more suitable member of the tribe to lead. Unfortunately, that would probably fall under the category of humiliating himself, his family, and his tribe, as he had been hoping not to do. Besides, his legs didn't seem to feel like moving, anyway, as the Voice's blue eyes seemed to have frozen him in place.

"You and your tribe wish you to take your father's place as chief among your people," the Voice went on, not noticing Zahir's inner turmoil or mercifully ignoring it if he did.

"I do." Even though that was the last thing he wanted to do at the moment, Zahir's tongue knew its duty and clearly offered the traditional response. Then, as his head reflexively lowered as custom dictated, his mind still struggled to absorb not only what was happening to him but what he was doing. "I cannot speak for my tribe."

"But you would become the leader and voice of your tribe with my permission," answered the Voice, following the script that had been handed down to them from hundreds of earlier generations.

"I would." Zahir kept his head down as he offered the ancient reply.

"It is a grave honor to serve as the voice of your tribe," the Voice informed him. "You will be responsible for defending your people, as well as enforcing their ancient laws and customs. They will turn to you as a voice of reason and fairness. They will depend upon you for leadership and guidance. Your people will rely upon you to be their voice when they cannot speak for themselves."

Here, the Voice paused, and Zahir felt his stomach perform somersaults just thinking about what his tribe would expect from him once he was chief. It was hard to believe that he had once thought being a chief would be wonderful, and that he had once been anticipating this moment. Now, he just wished that he could vomit in private, or, preferably, that someone else could be chief, instead.

Finally, after what seemed to be an eternity, the Voice demanded, "Do you understand the obligations of being a tribe chief now?"

"I do." As custom required, Zahir looked up into the Voice's penetrating eyes again.

"Then you know how much trust your people and I are putting in you in this ceremony," the Voice concluded, withdrawing a dagger from his pocket. Then, he ran it against his palm, creating a shallow cut. As the blood began to flow from the wound, he reached out and rubbed it against Zahir's forehead. Once there was a crimson mark on his forehead, the Voice pressed his hand against each of Zahir's cheeks.

As the Voice removed his hand from Zahir's face, Zahir could feel the man's blood slowly seeping into his pores. With it, came flashes of what his responsibilities would consist of as chief: presiding over tribal gatherings, settling disputes among tribe members, taking a role in religious functions, and making laws that would protect his people. It looked like it would be enough to occupy any six beings, and, yet, he was expected to perform all these duties. More than that, by two of the most important and binding rites among the Bazhir, he was sworn to fulfill these responsibilities.

His whole body numb, Zahir accepted the hand that the Voice extended to help him rise. As he stood, he heard thundering in his ears. At first, he thought it was merely his blood pounding through his veins, but, then, when he dared a glance at the crowd, he realized that it was his applauding tribe. Feeling if possible worse by his tribe's obvious faith in him, Zahir forced himself to smile and nod in gracious thanks.

At last, the clapping and the whistling died down when the Voice sat down next to Zahir's family and bit into a piece of fruit, indicating that the celebration feast had begun. As everyone helped themselves to the breads, meats, and fruits in the baskets before them, Zahir plopped down onto the ground beside his mother, and nibbled away at a roll and fruit, feeling like he had no appetite at all.

Finally, once the chatter and laughter of the revelers began to fade as the jugs of wine and the baskets of food emptied, Zahir knew that it was time to begin the second—even less pleasant—part of the day's rites, because now that his people had a new chief, they could bid their final farewell to their old one. Taking a gigantic breath as if he were about to plunge into a pool of frigid water, he shoved himself to his feet and began to make his way over to his father's funeral pyre, which was just outside the circle.

As he walked toward his father's pyre, convinced that his feet had been transformed to lead while he wasn't looking, a silence fell, as everyone watched him. Trying to ignore both the staring people and the tears stinging at his eyes that he couldn't allow to fall, Zahir grabbed a blazing torch and placed it against the pyre.

Within minutes, while the tribesmen gathered around the pyre in respectful silence for their former chief, the pyre had ignited. Flames licked at Zahir's father, as the fire devoured the shroud he was wrapped in.

Sternly, Zahir reminded himself that the flames were only consuming the man's body. After all, the man's soul, which was the most important part of him, had already moved on to the afterlife, and once his body was burned, his ashes could be scattered. His father would want his body to be turned into ashes to be scattered about to make the desert more fertile and to be carried to the Divine Realms on the wings of the wind.

Feeling the tears pricking his eyes, begging to fall, Zahir reminded himself that he wasn't supposed to cry. No one was. Everyone was supposed to respect the life of their former chief, but not to mourn his death excessively, because he had moved onto his divine reward. Nobody was supposed to dwell on the past leader; they were supposed to embrace their new leader, instead. That was why even Zahir's mother, Aisha, and Laila, however much they sobbed in the privacy of their tents, were not crying during the public funeral.

Zahir certainly couldn't cry. It was his duty not to. It was what his people expected of him. Still, it was hard not to feel like his heart had been ripped out of his chest, leaving a gaping wound there that would last forever, when he thought about his father.

His father had been the one who bought Zahir's horse and the one who taught him to ride it. His father had been the one who had instructed him in basic combat training before he became a page. His father had been the one who taught Zahir what it meant to be a man, and anything Zahir knew about being a chief he had learned from his father.

Looking at his father's burning body, Zahir could only pray that he would one day be half as good a leader as his father, and that he would not disgrace or disappoint the man.

He was so lost in contemplation that he nearly jumped a foot in the air when a gentle hand was placed on his arm. Reflexively, his heart still pounding in astonishment, Zahir looked to his right to see the person who had touched him, even though it wasn't truly necessary to do so. After all, the hand that had touched his arm was pale, and there was only one white skinned being here: the Voice himself. Everyone else had dark skin, dark hair, and dark eyes.

"Would you care to take a walk with me?" asked the Voice, as Zahir wondered vaguely if the king's northern appearance made him feel as out of place here as Zahir's Bazhir coloring made him feel in the Royal Palace. If it did, no uneasiness showed itself in the Voice's manner, and Zahir decided that the Voice probably wasn't uncomfortable at all. When you were king, there was probably nowhere in your country where you felt less than confident, and, if you did, you would never let anyone know, so it amounted to the same thing in the final analysis. "I'd like to speak with you."

"I'd be honored, Your Majesty." Unthinkingly, Zahir lapsed into the northern address, as he bowed and followed the man away from the pyre.

Once they had walked far enough away from the others that they could not be overhead, the Voice remarked, "I'm sorry for your loss."

"Thank you for your condolences," Zahir responded automatically. Then, before he could stop them, more words came pouring out of his mouth. "His death was really sudden, and, no matter how much I looked forward to being chief when I was a child, I'm not sure that I'm ready to be one now."

"I felt much the same way when my father died in a hunting accident," the Voice answered, and Zahir gaped at him. Never had he imagined that the King of Tortall would confide in him, and he had certainly never entertained the concept that anyone who was so obviously regal would doubt his ability to lead. "I hadn't planned on being king until years down the line, and when I had been prince, I had focused more on the privileges than the responsibilities of my rank."

"It's easier to think about what you're owed than what you owe," murmured Zahir, thinking that he had definitely fallen head over heels into this trap.

"Yes, it is," the Voice agreed, "but the crucial thing, I believe, is to grow out of that phase. When you are a child, it is fine to pay more attention to the perks than the duties of leadership, but as a leader it is not."

"That's the problem, Your Majesty," Zahir admitted, slipping into the northern address again. "I'm afraid that I lack the capacity to do that."

"Don't be." The Voice's tone made this more of a command than a reassurance. "I would never have made you chief if I thought that you couldn't, and if you were completely without it, you wouldn't worry about it at all. You may not think that you are ready to be chief, but if we waited our entire lives until we were ready to do things, we would never achieve anything, and that would be the true failure."

As always, Zahir found himself drawn in by the king's charisma, and, if anything the man was even more breathtaking in a one-on-one conversation. Zahir had no idea how to reply to the Voice's statement, but, abruptly, he was positive that the man was correct, and that he had been foolish to ever believe otherwise. After all, everybody was always afraid before they started something new. It was to be expected. Zahir himself had been petrified when he had first been put on a pony, and, that had turned out fine, since he was an excellent rider now. Similarly, he had been terrified when he began his page training, and he had managed to adapt to the rigors of it well enough.

"When you're feeling stressed by the burdens of leadership, though, do remember that every position has its benefits." Here, the Voice flashed a smile that made all of his teeth sparkle in the blinding desert sunlight. Then, he pulled out an ancient looking silver key with a lapis lazuli encrusted in the handle, and asked Zahir, "Do you know what this is?"

"The key to the room in the castle at Persopolis that allows us to keep watch on the city built by the demons," gasped Zahir, staring at the key that was entrusted to every Voice.

"Yes." The Voice nodded. "I alone decide who enters that room, and when I am in Persopolis, it is one of my favorite retreats. There, I can escape some of the hustle and bustle of courtiers for awhile, and the mosaics on the wall are the perfect combination of beautiful and horrifying I think."

Zahir continued to stare at the key until the Voice tucked it back into his pocket, saying, "We should return to the ceremony now. We both have duties to attend to, after all."


End file.
